This was my first year GMing an event at the WBC. I have
GM'd events at much smaller conventions, such as Prezcon in Charlottesville,
VA, but this one presented my first real challenge. I believe
that I rose to the occasion; I was the RA champion at
WBC last year, so I had to fight to retain my title! Unfortunately,
that is not what happened, but I digress. I worked very hard
to attract the 140 different players who participated in the
RA tournament this year. My fame was widespread....on
many displays and Kiosks to see, so I was able to offer a challenge
to any newcomer or skilled player, since all newcomers were welcome
to play in my tournament.

As it turns out, only a few players won more than one heat,
but more than a third of the participants played in at least
two of the four heats. This year, I allowed all winners of at
least one heat to qualify for the semifinals, but in retrospect
that left me with a large number of semifinalists when the best
number for me would have been 25 (I ended up with 41 different
winners after all the heats were over.) I am considering several
other ideas of how to handle this overflow of winners: Qualify
semifinalists based on number of games won (all winners of two
games qualify automatically), and then use the best percentage
out of your games played and won to choose the remaining semifinalists
up to the 25th slot. Another idea would be to use a system such
as the one that the Settlers of Catan GM used, assigning
points based on which position you finished in and only qualifying
people with at least a certain point amount. If anyone planning
to participate in the tournament next year has any suggestions,
I am always happy to hear them: michg2@msn.com.

I had seven semifinal games (49 semifinalists, including a
few alternates), which left me with seven qualifiers for the
final. I took the top five percentages out of all the winners
and they went to the finals. I had two alternates in case any
of the finalists had already qualified in other events. Two of
the final qualifying players could not make it to the final,
so both alternates
were able to play. It turns out that only one of the two alternates
showed up, so the RA final was only a 4-player game.

It became very exciting, right until the bitter end. The
winner was tied with the runnerup on fame points, # pharoahs,
# lands, and sun totals, so the tie-breaker was the person who
had the highest sun in his possession. You don't always think
that you need so many tie-breakers, but I am glad that I had
thought that out very carefully from previous RA tournaments.
Overall, it was an awful lot of fun running this event, and
I look forward to seeing everyone next year at WBC!